She Is Eternal
by NileGal
Summary: (based after The Lost City Part 2) Sam's life has changed since the first clues of finding Atlantis. Her body is nearly useless, and she now has to deal with the emotional trauma of what happened in that small artic outpost


_Spoilers for 'The Lost City Part 2'. Alternate Universe. _

**She is Eternal**

 "Good-bye." Daniel translated as the ice shield of the pod froze over Coronal Jack O'Neil. He looked to his side, seeing that both of the other members of his team were in complete shock. Teal'C spoke nothing, but stared. Sam slowly made her way to the frozen pod, placing her hand on the bone-chilling ice. He could see the tears in her eyes. 

 "We can't just leave him here like this." Sam said, her voice transferred her emotions as if it was addressed to only herself. "There has to be a way." She turned to get confirmation from her fellow team mates, but they just stared at the frozen over pod, as if they were having a nightmare. Sam stared back at the pod, looking at his face, as if Jack was looking straight at her as he said his farewell in Ancient. She slowly removed her hand, feeling the cold temperature numb her hand. She moved her hand, feeling her fingers weakly respond to their said action. She looked back up at the pod.

  "_SG-1, do you read? SG-1 do you read? What is your status?_" the voice of General Hammond said through the intercom. 

 "Alive, sir." Daniel replied numbly. "Alive." He said again. The ceiling above them shook as an approaching aircraft came. Daniel glanced over to where the Rings were, seeing that they were waiting for the SG-1 Team to board. He looked at Teal'C who nodded. Daniel squeezed Sam's arm, and she looked back at him with great sadness in her eyes, confusion and questioning were also there. Daniel shook his head sadly, and led her to the Rings. Sam looked back at the frozen pod, still believing that Jack's eyes were on her as she moved.

 They stood in the center of the Rings, watching as the light came through the Rings, signaling their transportation. The next thing they saw was the command team of the Promethious staring at them. Sam looked at each of their faces before feeling herself fall over in faint. They had said it was emotional trauma.

~*~

 She flexed her hands again, they were still slow and weak in responding to the messages her brain sent to them. Samantha Carter of Stargate Team 1was no longer part of the Stargate Command. Instead now, she sat in a wheelchair, by the same window in the hospital that she had for the last year. She remembered Daniel and Teal'C explaining what had happened after their arrival on the Promethious after their 'rescue' from Antarctica. 

 She'd collapsed, and was taken to the emergency room. They said she had emotional trauma, and that somehow the coldness of the environment had affected her, basically she had developed bad frostbite. She knew it had to have been when she touched Jack's pod. The aftermaths of her healing had left her motor skills horrible, and she could no longer walk. Therefore, much to her disagreement, they removed her from Stargate Team 1. You may have removed her from the field but not her memories. 

 The door opened to her small room. Sam turned her head slowly, seeing her father, Jacob Carter, coming into the room bright and smiling. She was able to force a fake smile; she hadn't really smiled since then. Jacob came and stood next to her, looking out the window. It was odd still, knowing that there were two inside her father's body. Sam looked out the window again, silent as always. She was full of problems now. Depression, aftermaths of frostbite, emotional trauma…she sighed.

 "You are doing better now, Samantha?" Selmak, the Tok'ra inside her father asked. Sam just glanced at him, and said nothing. How could she ask that?

 Selmak let out a sigh, and Jacob leaned next to his daughter's wheelchair. Sam looked at him sadly. Jacob took his hands in hers and clasped them together, feeling their cold numb effect still, even a year later. "I doubt you are going to get any better soon." He said. Sam closed her eyes. "The doctors said that I can take you home now, you don't need to be here any longer, Sam, only if you want too. Though I bet you want to see more to the world than outside your window, huh?" Sam pressed another fake smile. She had missed outside.

 As her father rolled her down the hallway, she stared out the long windows of the hospital hallway. It was summer outside, and should have been very warm now, but she was still cold. She shivered and hugged the coat around her tighter. They checked from the hospital and Jacob assisted her into climbing into the passenger seat. 

 It was a long drive. Either her father was driving slowly, or her mind was just slow at processing anything now. Sam closed her eyes, letting the slow car movement ease her body into a relax state. She had her coat wrapped around tightly, and a large thick blanket over her. They didn't speak, although sometimes Selmak spoke with Jacob about their destination. The car suddenly stopped and she opened her eyes, finding before her the very gate that led into the underground base of Stargate Command. She looked at her father, who only smiled. 

 Her father pushed her in her wheelchair as they went through the gate. The doors to the facility opened and Daniel ran out, Teal'C casually following behind him. Sam pushed a smile on, embracing both large men as they came over. Daniel ruffled her medium length hair, and Teal'C nodded. Sam's eyes moved around, as if she was expecting someone else to come, but then she remembered Jack wasn't here now. Daniel pushed her wheelchair into the facility now, and started to go down into the depths of the base. 

 So many memories.

 They all talked amongst themselves on what had happened since they last saw one another. Both Daniel and Teal'C had visited more planets with the two new additions to the SG-1 team, their teammates were great, but both seemed to miss Jack and Sam a great deal. Sam looked up, watching the lights blink as they went farther into the base. Not once did they mention if Jack was still there in Antarctica, and Sam found herself stuck between curiosity and also fear. The doors opened and Daniel wheeled the chair into the hallway. Many of the SG team members stopped and saluted to the former Major and she nodded. No doubt everyone knew what had happened.

 The day was spent with old friends, talking about the new times, never the old. Sam sat quietly, listening, but also staring at the surface of the table, part of her waiting for Jack to waltz back into the room and be perfectly fine. Daniel mentioned that now they had discovered all the sounds on the Stargate from their letter forms, and were working on translating it all. She showed some interest in this topic, hoping that they'd bring Jack up, but they never did.   
 Sam looked down from the briefing room down at the Stargate. Teal'C stood and picked Sam from her wheelchair and carried her down the steal steps and onto the ramp of the gate. Sam held her fingers out and traced the letters she could reach that were carved into the gate. The iris was closed of course, and she frowned.

 "We still haven't found Atlantis." Daniel said, coming up behind the two. "The only one who'd know is Jack...but, well, he still hasn't woken up." Sam turned her attention to him. "We checked up on him just this morning, no change…well, there are a few words imprinted onto the ice of the pod, but we haven't had the time to go and read them….my day off is tomorrow, I can go down and work on it."

 "I want to come." Sam said.

 "No Sam, you can't." her father said. "With the condition you returned in, there is no way I am letting you go back o that ice block. You can die there, Sam, you know that?" Sam was silent, keeping the straight military face she always had. "I'm sure they can find something for you to do around the Command Center, Sam."

 "I want to go with Daniel." Sam said sternly. "I can stay in the ship; I won't need to go down into the ice crater." Jacob bit his lip, still unsure. Daniel shrugged, not seeing a problem with it, although Teal'c seemed worried about her emotional problems. Going back to that outpost would bring up some memories, even though they brought themselves back up. 

 Teal'C replaced her into the wheelchair and began to push her from the Stargate room. She looked back over her shoulder as they left the room, knowing that she would most likely not see it again.

~*~

 Sam sat in the wheelchair behind Teal'c as he navigated the Tel'tak to the outpost. She stared out the window, remembering the seriousness of this mission, or at least what it had been. She could almost hear the events happening again as she sat there, and remembered the near panic everyone had been in. She smiled sadly at the memory.

 "_Sir, that's an order!_" she had shouted at Jack.

 Daniel glanced over at the solemn woman and sighed, looking back at Teal'C. Teal'C stopped the ship above the hole they had made; amazingly the ice hadn't frozen over it now. The ship hovered and the two men went to investigate the hole. Teal'C wrapped a blanket around Sam and squeezed her shoulder, leaving with Daniel. She heard the rings transported them down, and silence filled the ship. Sam flexed her hands, and waited for their return. It was lonely here, and she wanted to see Jack….even if he was still frozen. But, she couldn't…if she went, it would highly endanger her life. 

 But then again, did she really want to live in a chair with wheels all her life? If Jack did wake up, or come back from whatever he was in….could they be together? She would only see him at least once a week, if he continued in the Stargate program. She sighed and leaned back in her chair, moving her fingers around, trying to improve her motor skills again, even though she doubt they would improve. She began to worry once it had been nearly a half an hour before anyone called. 

 She wrapped the covers around her tightly and tried to warm herself. She felt as if the temperature was dropping, and her breath could be seen. She slowly looked around the cockpit in order to find something to increase the temperature, but there was nothing she could tell. She closed her eyes, and the next thing she knew, she was on the floor, unable to move. She closed her eyes, trying to get her legs to move closer to her body, but they didn't respond.

 Daniel stood in front of the pod as the ice slowly melted. It had been a while; he wondered if Jack would realize how long it had been. He smiled; this scene reminded him so much about the time when Princess Leia freed Han Solo in Star Wars. Then again, Jack wouldn't get the humor; he'd never seen Star Wars. The light shifted and Jack weakly fell forward and Teal'c caught him, laying him down on the ground and waited for him to come to. Jack opened his eyes and rubbed his head, groaning.

 "Welcome back, colonel." Daniel said with a smug. Jack waved at him, covering his eyes from the light. "Sleep well?"

 "Guess so." Jack responded and Teal'C helped him stand. He looked around the room, remembering for a moment. "At least I can speak English again." Daniel chuckled and Teal'C smiled. Jack looked around again, frowning. "Where's Carter?"

 Daniel and Teal'C looked at each other. 

 "Guys, where is she?" he asked again, noting their hesitation. "You know, this isn't funny." He could remember perfectly how she had looked before they placed him in the pod. Helpless, confused, and sad.

 "She…isn't part of Stargate Command anymore." Daniel answered. Jack nearly fell to the ground in shock. "She hasn't been….for, a while now." Jack looked at him oddly. "Yes Jack, you've been sleeping a while….about, a year and nine months." Jack did fall to the floor in shock this time. "She was dismissed from Stargate Command a year ago, due to her conditions she had after she left this place…trauma, frostbite….and well, depression over time."

 "Where is she now?" Jack asked. Daniel and Teal'C looked at each other again, then down.

 "She's gone." Teal'C answered. Jack looked at him in confusion, although he guessed what he meant. "Samantha Carter of SG-1 died nine months ago due to the effects that her conditions had left her body in. She had no high body temperature and her mind created the illusion of her body to be below freezing." Jack looked at the ground solemnly. "I'm sorry, O'Neill." 

 Jack sighed, looking over the small headstone in the graveyard of Sam's home town. It had been about three months ago now when he awoke. He had resigned from Stargate Command after they found Atlantis, and now lived normally. He bent down and placed the small red rose next to the other assorted flowers. Attached to the rose was a piece of paper with the words '_Ille eternus_'.

 She is Eternal.


End file.
